10.24.11

Tensions flared between dozens of pro-Israel demonstrators and members of “Students for Justice in Palestine” on Sunday afternoon, October 16th outside of Columbia University on the third and final day of the
2011 National Students for Justice in Palestine “teach-in” organized by members to prepare for their upcoming Israel Apartheid Week events across college campuses throughout North America.

Holding aloft both Israeli and American flags and signs saying, “SJP Brings Stealth Jihad to Columbia University”, “Stop Hamas Terror Against Jews and Christians” and “Occupy Columbia With Truth and Justice – Not Lies and Anti-Israel Incitement”, the pro-Israel supporters represented such organizations as Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), the National Conference of Jewish Affairs (NCJA), Amcha – Coalition for Jewish Concerns, and the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI).

Rancorous debates and raucous arguments broke out between the two sides as the Zionist contingent engaged the SJP members as they exited the university on the corner of 116th Street and Broadway. “Our conference is about advocating for human rights in Palestine. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are being subjected to the most severe degree of oppression on a daily basis by the Israeli colonialists and occupiers and we are here to put forth our message that a Jewish state is a fundamentally racist concept as are the apartheid practices of that state”, said Amina Fayyid, a SJP student organizer.

According to the SJP web site, one of the objectives of the conference is to “facilitate and support the advancement of existing campaigns and the development of new campaigns with particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel.” Among the multifarious seminars and workshops taking place at the conference is one entitled, “Indigenous Struggles: situating Palestine as a settler-colonial project” which ostensibly explores “understanding Palestine within comparative settler colonial framework while seeking to re-align the Palestinian movement within a universal history of decolonization, and imagining new possibilities for Palestinian resistance, solidarity and common struggle.”

Helen Freedman, executive director of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), said, “Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East and these student activists know very well that Palestinians living in Israel have a much better lifestyle than they would in any other Arab country; yet their goal in organizing such a conference is perpetuate the myths, incessant lies and blatant distortions that they use in their quest to demonize Israel. What we are witnessing here today is nothing short of the most egregious form of anti-Semitism cloaked in the clever subterfuge of anti-Zionism.”

Taking aim at Columbia University for allowing their campus to be used for the conference, Glenn Richter, former chairman of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry movement and the current director of Amcha -CJC said, “This university has a long and shameful tradition of anti-Semitic policies, dating back over 70 years ago when brave students protested against the pro-Nazi policies of the institution’s heavy-handed president, Nicholas Murray Butler. Butler then had a leader of the protests expelled. Today we are here protesting against a different form of racist ideology, commonly known as Islamo-fascism.”

Calling the members of SJP, “Islamo-Fascists For An Arab Only Palestine”, the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam issued a flyer declaring that the motivation for the conference was predicated on “bigotry, violence and genocide against the Jewish people.” Dr. Marvin Belsky, a retired New York City physician and spokesman for HRCARI said, “In Israel, Christians, Muslims and gays have full human rights, protection and dignity. Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages and Arabs who comprise over 1.2 million citizens serve in government, as well as assuming positions as judges, doctors, ambassadors and police and Israel remains a refuge for the world’s oppressed from Asia to Africa.”

Larry Domnitch, a prolific author, academic and historian, said he came “to express my support for Israel in the face of so much misinformation that is being disseminated on this campus and others as well. In a few weeks will be the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which expressed the inherent and historical right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. 94 years later that right is still being contested.”

Julian Rappaport, one of the demonstrators engaging with passers-by at the university’s gate, contended that the anti-Israel conference inside was not an expression of free speech, but “to give only one, incorrect side of the picture. Columbia has the responsibility to be more critical of what’s going on.” During a heated confrontation with an SJP member who called for “the complete obliteration of the racist Zionist entity”, Mr, Rappaport was arrested by police for allegedly kicking the student and was charged with disorderly conduct. He was released soon thereafter and returned to the demonstration.

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Fern Sidman holds a B.A, in political science from Brooklyn College. She was the educational coordinator for the Betar Youth Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was national director of the Jewish Defense League from 1983-1985. She was a researcher for several books written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTK”L. She was the managing editor of the publication entitled, The Voice of Judea, and is a regular contributor to its web site. She is currently a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her articles have appeared in The Jewish Press, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and numerous Jewish and general web sites including, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes and Michael Freund.
We are delighted to have Ms. Sidman as a regular contributor to the Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog.

America’s longstanding policy of Muslim appeasement has been a complete failure. We started on this path thinking that acts of kindness will somehow separate the good Muslims from the extremists. Our efforts have only made maters worse. The Middle East has become more radicalized than at any point in the past.

Afghanistan is a prime example of our failed labors. We have spent over $440 billion trying to make that nation a better place, and intolerance has only gotten worse under our watch. The post-Taliban was even nice enough to pass a constitution that ensures the free exercise of religion. It was as pointless as having a fox put his paw print on a contract that guarantees he won’t eat the chickens he’s left to guard. According to the U.S. State Department, there is not a single public Christian church left in Afghanistan. They have all been destroyed by various Muslim forces. The State Department also said there is only one Jewish resident left in Afghanistan. At one time, there were thousands of Jews in that land.

Looking back on our time in Iraq, it’s a good question whether we made the right choice to invade. The majority of Americans believe the mission was more of a failure than a success. Saddam Hussein was never an imminent threat to the United States. Now that Shia Muslims control Iraq, there has been a warming of relations with Iran. I think the only reason we are trying to maintain troops in Iraq is to prevent Iraq from turning into an Islamic state.

Our political leaders were all shocked when they learned that Pakistan’s military had provided support to terrorist groups. We have provided aid to Pakistan for sixty years, and yet they chose to side with radicals that have killed over 20,000 of their own people. When we found Osama bin Laden living next to Pakistan’s military academy, it should have been all the more obvious that an infidel can’t buy love in the Islamic world.

Our dealing with Iran has been another appeasement failure. Last week, it was made known that agents working for Iran had plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and to bomb buildings connected to Israel. Tehran gave approval to this plot because it perceived America as being weak. So far, all we did was give the Iranian UN ambassador a tongue lashing, and we talked about our pipe-dream hope of still bringing Iran into the family of nations.

We are headed for disaster if we think we can coexist with a nation that likes to sponsor terrorism and is working feverishly to join the nuclear club. Just the thought of Republican Guard units sneaking an atomic bomb into New York should spur us toward taking a hard-line stance with Tehran.

Some of our efforts at appeasement don’t even make sense. In May, Hillary Clinton released a State Department video celebrating Muslim inventions that fails to show any inventions. Clinton had to go all the way back to the ninth century to praise some woman who founded a university. She lauded the use of social networking technology by young people throughout the Middle East to express their aspirations, but all that stuff was invented in the West. If Clinton had the most basic understanding of history, she would know that the Muslim world has been a dead zone for innovation.

What makes it so fruitless to deal with Muslims is the lack of value they place on life. Israel and Hamas just agreed to swap Palestinian prisoners for Israeli captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Israel will release 1,027 prisoners in two stages. Within a week, 450 will be swapped for Shalit and the rest will be freed two months later. If I was Palestinian, I would have to think long and hard about why the life of an Israeli soldier is worth a thousand times than my own.

The core problem is the evil nature of the Muslim religion. Because Islam is satanically driven, it’s foolhardy to try to befriend a cabal that seeks our enslavement. We wouldn’t fall into the appeasement trap if we took into account all the time our kindness towards Islam has only been rewarded with betrayal.

There would be no Muslim appeasement if our leaders had read and understood their Bible. In Genesis, we are told that there is a spiritual conflict between Abraham’s two sons. Isaac would be the son of the promise and Ishmael would cursed as a “wild ass” of a man with his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him (Gen. 16:12). The children of Ishmael will continue kicking like a donkey right up to the point that they are nearly wiped out in Tribulation carnage.

“For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again. In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones.” Matthew 24:21-22 (NLT)